EF girls' win ended BVA's season

We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

When Elizabeth Forward upset top-seeded and previously undefeated Blackhawk, 78-64, in the semifinals of the WPIAL Class AAA girls' basketball playoffs, the Lady Cougars weren't the only team to be stunned that night.

So was Belle Vernon Area.

By virtue of EF's upset, the Lady Leps' season officially came to an end.

Because BVA (16-7) was a 71-46 loser to Blackhawk in the WPIAL quarterfinals, the Lady Leps would have picked up only the second PIAA playoff berth in the school's history (the other was in 1998) if Blackhawk would have beaten fifth-seeded EF.

Six WPIAL teams qualify for the state playoffs, with all four semifinalists joined by the two teams to lose to the finalists in quarterfinals.

As a result of EF's upset win, BVA is out and Central Valley, which fell to EF 66-45 in the quarters, is in.

EF's victory was a bitter pill for BVA to swallow as the Lady Leps were looking forward to extending their season, along with the career of seniors Jessica Slagus, Natalie Bashada and Jillian Niro.

“I was at the game with four of my players and it was tough to watch,” BVA coach Lisa Fairman said. “We are kind of surprised and I'm sure a lot of people are. Not to take anything away from Elizabeth Forward, because they played a great game. But with Blackhawk's record and top seed, we just kind of expected they would win.

“We had plans to scrimmage before the state playoffs. But I sent a text to the EF coach congratulating them on a great win.”

Fairman said although her team is disappointed, it doesn't take away from the season the Lady Leps had.

“This doesn't define what we did as a team,” she said. “We did a lot of good things and we improved from last year to this year. I told the girls I'm still proud of this team. I know a lot of them are feeling bad because we won't be in the states, but that's why you play the games. You never know what is going to happen.”

Final 1,000-point tallies

Slagus ended her career at BVA with 1,133 points and ranks third on the girls' all-time scoring list at the school. She also grabbed 864 rebounds to rank third on that list.

Other local players who eclipsed 1,000 points and wrapped up their careers were Monessen's Mariah Ward and California's Courtnee McMasters on the girls' side and California's Tanner Huffman and Brian Fisher on the boys' side.

Ward ended up with 1,476 points and is sixth on Monessen's all-time girls scoring list.

Huffman closed his career with 1,351 points and Fisher has 1,233, putting them second and third on the school's all-time boys list.

McMasters finished with 1,002 points and is the second Lady Trojan to hit 1,000 points.

It's tough to be public and small

How tough a trend is Clairton trying to buck when it goes into Friday's WPIAL Class A title tilt against Vincentian?

Since 2001, the only public schools to win WPIAL gold in Class A are Monessen twice, Union, Duquesne, Clairton and Leechburg.

On the girls' side, the problems for public schools is even tougher.

Since 1996, in Class A only Monessen and Clairton (twice each) have won while Catholic/private schools have won the other 14 years, including this season (Serra plays Vincentian in the title game).

In AA girls', dating back to 1992, the only public schools to win WPIAL titles are East Allegheny, Carlynton, Avonworth, Hampton, Sto-Rox and Jeannette. That gives the private schools a commanding 16-6 edge including this year as Bishop Canevin and Seton-La Salle meet for the AA crown.

Local flavor in the finals

In the Class AAAA boys' championship game, Hampton will attempt to hand top-seeded New Castle (25-0) its first loss.

Hampton (21-4) is coached by Joe Lafko, a former multi-sport star at Frazier. Lafko's son, Joe, is a sophomore starting guard for the Talbots.

Jeff Oliver is a sports editor for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-684-2666 or joliver@tribweb.com.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.